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PC In An XP Box
wolrahnaes writes "There is an article up on mini-itx.com explaining how to fit a fully functional PC based on a VIA M10000 EPIA board in to a Windows XP box.
The author even explains how he then fit it in to a Red Hat box and used a sensor to tell the bootloader which OS to run based on which box it is in."
...that one of the most expensive component of the project is the box itself.
Now I just have to find an OS/2 box...
Setec Astronomy
to the wonderful world of people who have too much time on their hands!
A Windows XP box worth the retail price!
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
Microsoft will definitely get into trouble when they start bundling computers with purchases of Windows.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
"Windows XP Box" By Andy France - Posted on 1 December 2003
;)
Slashdot: Always first with the news
Martin Brooks / Slayer99 #linux / UIN 2178117
Ok, so we all know that you can get small motherboards and shove them into odd things..
This *might* have been interesting 2 years ago, but at this point.. so what?
Anyone can do this if you want to waste the cash and time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Too bad most Slashdotters who use XP won't actually HAVE an XP box...
The final step was to take an assembly language MBR boot loader program and modify it to read the state of the tilt switch and make it boot the partition containing Windows XP or the partition containing Linux. To those that don't know the secret of how it works it looks like magic. It boots the right O/S for the box it is in.
Is it just me, or do these guys have way too much time on their hands? I mean... what in the world do they hope to accomplish besides a (+5, HOLYSHIT) moderation?
So, Bob, what did you do this weekend?
Oh, you know, barbeque with the friends, fucked the wife, usual stuff. You?
The usual, drank a bunch of jolt, wacked off in the basement to anime and wrote an article about a useless PC mod.
Yawn, that's nothing, wake me up when they manage to get a working PC with Windows in it.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
"Recycle Bin."
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
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Nothing to see here
You know, that cardboard box that windows comes in when you buy it from a retail store.
still no cure for cancer.
seriously, wouldn't time be better spent on other, more worthwhile projects than building a computer in a box?
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I thought that project was kind of dull when I first saw it. It's not improved with time. On the other hand, I really like the look of the new Nanode PC from Mini-ITX (same site), designed by Hoojum.
Take a look at this picture and the cat. Now look at your desktop PC and imagine a cat standing next to it. The nanode really is that small.
I want one.
The site with the rest of the info is here.
D.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
TO MUCH time on there hands...
You must be very busy, what with the nine word post that has three mistakes in it.
One substantial difference is that I used only the cardboard box itself as a mounting infrastructure; I didn't build a little case and then wrap the Windows or Linux box around it, like this does.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
IAALS.
Well, it's not really too bad, since having a box is a sign you gave Microsoft lots of extra money. While I expect you intended to imply that some slashdot readers pirate Microsoft software, many know that they can legally buy OEM copies of WInXP with some hardware for a lot less than they would pay for a boxed retail copy of XP. In some cases that hardware can cost as low as a buck. And whatever it costs you get the same software, a legal unique ID for it, extra hardware and a lower total cost. So unless you want to display that box as a sign of shame for paying too much for the software, (or get great rebate deals on other products that effectively make the retail box free, as happened when XP first came out) why would anyone buy the retail box?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I have to wonder why everyone thinks that paper and computers are a fire hazard. I've never seen the little stickers on my ram, cards and motherboards burst into flames.
The average case temperature is 35deg C. Paper, wood, tinder, sawdust, none of it will burn at 35deg C.
Text, sans really cool pics. When he writes "Windows XP Box" he means the cardboard box that Windows XP comes in.
Introduction
I needed a small Windows XP machine and a Mini-ITX board was the obvious choice. So I decided to build my "Windows XP Box" in a Windows XP box. The external dimensions of the box are a tiny 243mm x 200mm x 48mm.
My requirements were:
* Use as powerful a motherboard as possible for the size i.e. a Nehemiah EPIA M10000.
* It must have an internal CD drive (this size eating requirement turned out be be very hard to meet).
* No bits could be cut off the motherboard to make it fit.
* The box must not bulge in an unsightly way, nor can the box be made bigger.
* It must not burst into flames when working hard (this should always be a requirement of a computer project).
Fortunately there is no longer any requirement for an internal floppy drive. That would have have defeated me.
Construction
The bits arrive and it looks like an impossible task, with too many bits to fit in a small space.
I nearly gave up and decided it was an impossible task. The Windows XP box was 3mm thinner and 12 mm narrower than the Adobe Acrobat box I had measured up when first deciding if the project was going to be possible. The challenge was to arrange the components into a 3D jigsaw, then decide how to build enough of an internal support case to get everything to stay in place.
Eventually it looked like I might have a possible layout, but the tolerances were tight. I had 6mm to spare on the long internal dimension of the box and only 3mm to spare on the thickness of the box, and this was not allowing for any thickness for the internal support case that holds everything in place.
In order to mount all the bits I was going to have to make an inner support case that would tightly slide into the cardboard box. I chose Wonderboard plastic as my construction material because it is reasonably strong and very easy to work with (it cuts with a Stanley knife). It would have been nice to use aluminium, but the cramped design made the chances of a short circuit too great.
The first construction step was to cut out a base plate the exact size of the inside of the cardboard box and double check where the bits will fit.
As the Wonderboard was 3mm thick this reduced my tolerance in two dimensions to zero. The CD drive would touch one side of the inner support case. The deep part of the CD drive would touch the heat sink on the motherboard, with the narrow bit being able to overlap it, and the far side of the motherboard touches the other side of the Wonderboard case. In the other dimension it was even harder. The top of the sound connector would touch the support case, and the underside of the motherboard would touch the cardboard box. Fortunately the hard drive can slide under the motherboard as this is above (below?) the unused PCI slot. The only place left for the PSU was above the hard drive with the bulky connectors facing down towards the CD both to the front and the back of the hard drive.
Now I could position the CD drive hard against the side and start assembling the support case. In the next picture you can see the step up between the thin part of the CD drive and the thicker part of the main body of the drive. The heat sink on the Mini-ITX board touches this step.
After much cutting and half a tube of glue the case was finished. I built pillars to support three corners of the motherboard and the power supply and added brackets to support the CD and the hard drive. In such a compact design cooling was a concern so I made fan mounting points in opposite corners of the case. To keep the CPU nice and cool I cut a hole for it it the side of the case and glued in a couple of plates to act as ducting so the CPU fan will only suck in cold outside air. The other two fans are the exhaust points. The fan guards were cut out of a metal speaker grill using an angle grinder as neatly drilling t
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Use a box to build yourself a new box so you can run Box inside of Bochs on your box!
You get Lindows.
What's next? Putting it in a carboard cut out of britney spears?
I guess the sad thing here is that this sounds really cool to me.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
If you put in a box labeled "Duke Nukem Forever" it travels to the distant future and surprises some eloi and morlocks.
Goes right back to that thread about hot rods and PCs.
Some are interested purely in performance.
Of those, there are the straight line speed freaks, tight cornering freaks, altogethering racing freaks...etc.
Some are interested only the aesthetics of the car. Neon, bouncing and turning the trunk into a giant subwoofer.
Off in another corner, you've got those who are cooking food ontop of their engines, putting real aviation wings (to fly), turning the car into an amphibious vehicle, sitcking incredibly weird looking chasis on a vehicle frame.
With someone sticking a computer inside a software box, it certainly looks like computers have made it to the same level that automobiles have in the minds of people.
...is that computers are getting small enough for that goatse guy to do his own personal "case mod" and it's only a matter of time before we have the link.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Of course, literate geeks should know that paper ignites at Fahrenheit 451, (233 C).
From page 4 of the article: The problem now was that I ran the risk of accidentally booting Linux from the "Windows XP Box" or even worse, booting Windows from the "Linux Box". That would not be good. It needed to be fool proof.
He should have it set up so that it boots XP when the guts are in the Linux box, and boots Linux when it's in the XP box. That way he can wave his hand at the computer and say "That's my XP box that runs Linux", or "That's XP running in my Linux box" and confuse any local annoying computer know-it-alls (that don't).
Of course, literate geeks should know that paper ignites at Fahrenheit 451, (233 C).
You should definately be modded up for that.. I totally forgot about that book.
I believe my motherboard is set to shutdown if it reaches 110C... so I'd have no problem making an origami computer case.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.